人教版英语选修7课文

人教版英语选修 7 课文 选修七 Unit 1 Living well Marty’s story Hi, my name is Marty Fielding and I guess you could say that I am “one in a million.”In other wor ds, there are not many people like me. You see, I have a muscle disease which makes me very wea k, so I can’t run or climb stairs as quickly as other people. In addition, sometimes I am very clums y and drop things or bump into furniture. Unfortunately, the doctors don’t know how to make me b etter, but I am very outgoing and have learned to adapt to my disability. My motto is: live one day at a time. Until I was ten years old I was the same as everyone else. I used to climb trees, swim a nd play football. In fact, I used to dream about playing professional football and possibly represent ing my country in the World Cup. Then I started to get weaker and weaker, until I could only enjo y football from a bench at the stadium. In the end I went into hospital for medical tests. I stayed th ere for nearly three months. I think I had at least a billion tests, including one in which they cut out a piece of muscle from my leg and looked at it under a microscope. Even after all that, no one could give my disease a name and it is difficult to know what the future holds. One problem is that I don’t look any different from other people. So sometimes some children in my primary school would laugh, when I got out of breath after running a short way or had to stop and rest halfway up the stairs. Sometimes I was too weak to go to school so my education suffered . Every time I returned after an absence, I felt stupid because I was behind the others. My life is a lot easier at high school because my fellow students have accepted me. The few who can not see the real person inside my body do not make me annoyed, and I just ignore them. All i n all I have a good life. I am happy to have found many things I can do, like writing and computer programming. My ambition is to work for a firm that develops computer software when I grow up. Last year I invented a computer football game and a big company has decided to buy from me. I h ave a very busy life with no time to sit around feeling sorry for myself. As well as going to movies and football matches with my friends, I spend a lot of time with my pets. I have two rabbits, a par rot, a tank full of fish and a tortoise. To look after my pets properly takes a lot of time but I find it worthwhile. I also have to do a lot of work, especially if I have been away for a while. In many ways my disability has helped me grow stronger psychologically and become more independent. I have to work hard to live a normal life but it has been worth it. If I had a chance to say one thing t o healthy children, it would be this: having a disability does not mean your life is not satisfying. S o don’t feel sorry for the disabled or make fun of them, and don’t ignore them either. Just accept th em for who they are, and give them encouragement to live as rich and full a life as you do. Thank you for reading my story.

One day, Claire mentioned that she didn’t think she was clever. Tony said that she must feel very unhappy to say that. Claire thought it was ridiculous to be offered sympathy by a robot. But she began to trust him. She told him how she was overweight and this made her feel unhappy. Also she felt her home wasn’t elegant enough for someone like Larry who wanted to improve his social position. She wasn’t like Gladys Claffern, one of the richest and most powerful women around. As a favor Tony promised to help Claire make herself smarter and her home more elegant. So Claise borrowed a pile of books from the library for him to read, or rather, scan. She

looked at his fingers with wonder as they turned each page and suddenly reached for his hand. She was amazed by his fingernails and the softness and warmth of his skin. How absurd, she thought. He was just a machine. Tony gave Claire a new haircut and changed the makeup she wore. As he was not allowed to accompany her to the shops, he wrote out a list of items for her. Claire went into the city and bought curtains, cushions, a carpet and bedding. Then she went into a jeweler shop to buy a necklace. When the clerk at the counter was rude to her, she rang Tony up and told the clerk to speak to him. The clerk immediately changed his attitude. Claire thanked Tony, telling him that he was a “dear”. As she turned around, there stood Gladys Claffern. How awful to be discovered by her, Claire thought. By the amused and surprised look on her face, Claire knew that Gladys thought she was having an affair. After all, she knew Claire’s husband name was Larry, not Tony. When Claire got home, she wept with anger in her armchair. Gladys was everything Claire wanted to be.“You can be like her”, Tony told her and suggested that she invite Gladys and her friends to the house the night before he was to leave and Larry was to return. By that time, Tony expected the house to be completely transformed. Tony worked steadily on the improvements. Claire tried to help once but was too clumsy. She fell off a ladder and even though Tony was in the next room, he managed to catch her in time. He held her firmly in his arms and she felt the warmth of his body. She screamed, pushed him away and ran to her room for the rest of the day. The night of the party arrived. The clock struck eight. The guests would be arriving soon and Claire told Tony to go into another room. At that moment, Tony folded his arms around her, bending his face close to hers. She cried out “Tony” and then heard him declare that he didn’t want to leave her the next day and that he felt more than just the desire to please her. Then the front door bell rang. Tony freed her and disappeared from sight. It was then that Claire realized that Tony had opened the curtains of the front window. Her guests had seen everything! The women were impressed by Claire, the house and the delicious cuisine. Just before they left, Claire heard Gladys whispering to another woman that she had never seen anyone so handsome as Tony. What a sweet victory to be envied by those women! She might not be as beautiful as them, but none of them had such a handsome lover. Then she remembered- Tony was just a machine. She shouted “ Leave me alone” and ran to her bed. She cried all night. The next morning a car drove up and took Tony away. The company was very pleased with the report of Tony on his three weeks with Claire. Tony had protected a human being from harm. He had prevented Claire from harming herself through her own sense of failure. He had opened the curtains that night so that the other women would see him and Claire, knowing that there was no risk to Claire’s marriage. But even though Tony had been so clever, he would have to be rebuilt- you can not have women falling in love with machines.